A love letter to Jack Kirby, this series focuses on Mainframe, a retired member of the Galactic Bounty Hunters who becomes a comic creator and starts a family. Jack Berkley is a famous comic creator, using his previous adventures with the GBH as fodder for his comic stories. When one of his former enemies seeks out Jack’s evidence on his mother, Jack’s son Garrett is kidnapped and whisked away on an intergalactic journey, learning that his father isn’t a “joke” and that he was once the hero Mainframe. Suiting up and getting his old team back together, Jack seeks out his captured son and goes all out in order to defeat Slugg and stop the evidence keeping Slugg’s mother in prison from being destroyed!

A very short synopsis, but one that sums up this amazing tale. While some of Kirby’s art is used in this collection, most of it is not Jack’s but the artists do an amazing job of coping his style and giving the whole trade a great feel. I wish this collection had been in hardcover, as that is my preferred way to collect trades, but just having this is great. I really love the Kirby esthetic, which includes his writing style, which this does a fine job of mimicking, and his character designs, with their unique costumes and color pallets. The story here is great, allowing all of the members of the GHB to shine and giving us some father-son realizations in the process. We even get a cameo from Captain Victory, which is amazing!

Each of the six collected issues is massive, allowing the story to breath. Also included is a bunch of art and interviews with the creators behind this collection, which adds more depth, if reading that stuff is your thing. All-in-all, what can I say, I’m a Jack Kirby fan and even though he didn’t writer or draw this entire collection, with his daughter at the helm, if fells as if he had!

I will not be reviewing each, individual story in this issue, but I will rather give an overview.

It has been sometime since I picked up an issue of Heavy Metal, an actually read everything within it’s pages. The last issue that I grabbed, was for an article on Jack Kirby’s Lord of Light contributions in issue #276. Once the article was read and the art absorbed, it was bag ‘n’ boarded and put away. Before that, I was in high school, some 20 years ago, and even buying the issue was a challenge, because Heavy Metal is known for it’s graphic violence and sexual content. However, since then, I have been interested in the magazine, but have never found a copy at my local comic store, instead, having to go to a Barnes & Noble to seek one out. What usual kept me from purchasing a copy, was that most of the stories inside were continuations to stories in previous issues, and I didn’t want to be lost or have part of a story. While this issue does contain stories like that, parts of a whole narrative, most of the content within this issue is self contained or art based.

I must say, that I’m definitely impressed with this issue of Heavy Metal! The issue has a theme, science-fiction, and sticks to that, providing almost a dozen tales with a sci-fi bent. There are also some cover galleries, entries in a cover contest, which are great to look at. In fact, the covers are the best part of Heavy Metal overall. I don’t mean to downplay the creators on the inside of an issue, but the covers always grabbed me, whenever I would see an issue in the “wild”. They provide me tons of ideas, which is great for a gamer, especially one who is the “Game Master” most of the time.

If you love the comic medium, especially one where any idea or art style is printed, then this is the magazine for you! I was never around for the days of the magazines, especially Marvel’s Epic Illustrated, and Heavy Metal is one of the only survivors. You get a lot of entertainment for the price of admission, and in this day, that means something!

Taking place after the Power Rangers free Tommy from Rita’s clutches, the Green Ranger is the newest member of the team. Tommy is having some problems with adjusting to taking orders and his new life in Angel Grove. Tommy keeps having visions of Rita, who derides him, driving him to take risks and disobey orders. This is all part of Rita’s plan to use Scorpina to gather the chaos energies of the Green Ranger in order to open a portal. Sending Putties after Tommy while at home, Scorpina is able to make an imprint of the Dragon Dagger, which Rita uses to take over the Dragonzord. After the battle with Scorpina and the Dragonzord, the Rangers capture her and bring hero back to their base. The Rangers are angry at Tommy, who is constantly disobeying orders and getting himself into trouble, but it’s all too late as their anger activates the fake Dragon Dagger and opens the portal, destroying the Ranger’s base.

This is a fun and fantastic read, especially if you love the Power Rangers! I watched the original series, back in the day, and really enjoyed the concept and action of the show, while the dialogue is painful, especially today. But with that said, this series takes what I liked about the series and amps up the action and set-pieces, and gives us much better character interaction and dialogue, and frankly, a much better story! The art is also great, feeling a bit anime at times, and seeing as how the Power Rangers have a connection to Japan anyway, this fits. The main story is more serious than anything Power Rangers I’ve every read.

The back up feature focuses on the goofballs that are Bulk and Skull, and their attempts to get the girls to join their Power Ranger club. While it’s odd and the art doesn’t hold up to that of the main story, it’s still fun and reminiscent of the Bulk and Skull adventures seen on TV series.

All-in-all, this is a great collection, filled with great art and fantastic two fantastic stories, and I can not wait for this story to be continued.

At some point last summer, while back home in South Jersey, my friend, LabyB, found this little gem for her boyfriend, who has a minor swords-and-sorcery comic collection.

Well, fast forward to today, when I discover that he’s “trimming-the-fat” from his collection and he gives me this issue, because he noticed that it had a cover by Jack Kirby. I thanked him for the gift and flipped though it, disappointed that it didn’t have Kirby art or story on the inside, but having just read Silver Star, and getting myself in a Kirby-mood, I decided to read this issue anyway, and boy am I glad that I did!

While Kirby only provides the cover, the story and art belong Michael Thibodeaux, a name I wasn’t familiar with. This comic has fantasy elements and takes place at the end of the Viking Era and features a group of Viking Heroes that could rival the Warriors Three. This issue sets up our heroes and their conflict and does it by telling an interesting story with interesting characters and does it in an “old-school” manner that hasn’t been seen in a while. Even though it’s not Kirby, the art really holds up and pretty darn good for the genre, feeling like a marriage between the Marvel’s Conan comics and their Epic Illustrated magazine.

I’m glad that my friend was cleaning his collection and that this little gem could have landed in my lap, because I now on the hunt for the remaining issues, because I need to know what happens to our Last Viking Heroes!

Truly Jack Kirby’s wildest concept, Silver Star tells the story of Morgan Miller, a name who is the next evolution of human: Homo-Geneticus! During an engagement Viet Nam, Morgan displays a feat of incredible strength, by lifting a throwing a tank, and afterward discovers his true potential, as a super-powered being. Wearing a silver suit, designed to contain his powers, Morgan becomes the Silver Star, a man with the abilities of atom rearrangement (think Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen), he can teleport, astral project and create with a thought. He becomes aware that his father, a doctor and scientist, had experimented on many subjects, including his own son, while they were in the womb, in order to create a version of man who could withstand the atomic bomb. Morgan is connected to these “Others” and wishes to seek them out in order to stop one of their own, the villain Darius Drumm, a powerful Homo-Geneticus who was raised by a cult, which has given him many mental scars (to match his outward ones) and seeks to remake the world as he sees fit. Drumm and Morgan seek the “Others”, with Drumm killing off most but Morgan is able to find a few, one of which is a female stunt woman named Norma Richmond, with whom he starts a relationship and helps him defeat Drumm.

My synopsis on this one isn’t great, because there is a lot going on here, but if you liked anything that I mentioned, then you must read this, because I absolutely loved this story! I love, pretty much everything that Jack Kirby has created, so I can’t tell if I’m biased or not, but I thought that there were some very interesting concepts here, that could have been explored, had this been written in a post-Watchmen era. Jack’s art is fantastic and the new coloring makes each page stand out, especially Jack’s double-paged splash pages. The story is good, but most of the dialogue is a bit dated by now, but that’s to be expected. This collection also includes a copy of Jack Kirby’s original screenplay, because this story was meant to be a movie with the ability to expand into other mediums.

I picked this one up on a whim, not knowing what to expect from it and I’m glad that I did! This was the last series that Kirby did and I think that he ended his creative and professional career on a high note!